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I’ve been trying to draw a map this morning-
chart the distance between
Black rage and dead Black bodies.
so far I’ve been outlining our ontology,
tracing round the landmass of
Renisha, Aiyana, Eric, Michael-
the names become too many
the landmass too large.
I’ve been attempting to chart
the scale of this rage,
its dimensions.
i close my eyes to do a field measurement,
feel the acid building in my mouth-
fists tighten-
wonder where this might take me now,
i give into the logic of the juju-
as in – collective memory,
embrace the time machine of my body
and hold counsel with
George Jackson, Nat Turner, Toussaint Louverture-
hands still tightening,
feel like root worker’s hands,
executing their magic now.
i continue to tracing my steps
and the distance between
these bodies and this rage,
closer than i thought it was-
momentarily open my eyes now

find myself in a ghost story
i mean america
no i mean a ghost story.
america is a ghost story
and its tucked just beneath our skin,
boiling in our blood,
no need to map the distance
between this rage and this body,
all we need do is momentarily open our eyes,
embrace the witness in our blood,
hold a stubborn course-
the dead, the living and the unborn
circling round as we pronounce
the circumference, and the texture, and the depth
of the world we are no longer content to live without.

In the midst of what would be Octavia Butler’s 66th birthday I wanted to reflect on what she has meant to me over the years. Undoubtedly without the guidance of this luminary I would be less determined in what I imagine is possible. Science/Speculative Fiction writer par excellence Butler would find herself fascinated by the world of science fiction but also frustrated by what she saw lacking in it.

Science Fiction per the usual left African peoples absent, as if to say, whether explicitly or implicitly, that the future would be one without our presence. But if the white-male dominated genre would assume our omission or erasure from the future, Butler certainly assumed our centrality to it with our Laurens, our Anyanwus, our Danas. Octavia helped me to articulate black presence in ways that no other writer has been able to with similar force.

She taught me to listen with what she called “radio imagination” as she would layer the details of another world brilliantly, distinct and yet familiar to my own. I see in Octavia Butler’s work our need to be more creative in not just deconstructing systems of oppression but imagining what our world might look like after them.

So many of the conversations I see happening in circles of folks concerned about “justice” takes positions that identify what is wrong without ever arriving at envisioning what we believe is possible. This is the challenge that I take from Octavia Butler’s work though she leaves us with no easy answers. I hear in her work an assertion of self-determining will that like Lauren Olamina “intends to survive” though the road is not one that is “ideologically pure” (as if that could even be achieved). I hear our black prophet urging us to understand the power of our own body to heal and the power of our tongue to reinscribe ourselves as far more than some ancillary and cautionary tale. Her myths (not used her to identify something untrue) or stories of stories serve as a re-membering a re-naming that empowers me to, with erect back, upload a virus into this crooked system as I simultaneously reimagine the world! Bravo brave one and may we honor your tradition. Salute!

Below is a spread from my latest work, Because When We Say NAT It Be Writ Large, which is now available for pre-order here. You know you need more kick-ass afro-futuristic AWESOME at the intersections of myth, historical and personal narrative. Books from pre-orders go out June 1st. Book Release is June 15th (check event column here for details) which you don’t wanna miss. And an interview with Short, Fast and Deadly to wet your appetite here. For now though feast your eyes, and run tell that!